We've been saying for the last several years, that we would celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary by be remarried by Elvis in Las Vegas, so on December 7th (slightly over a week since our REAL anniversary on the 27th of November, we took off for Vegas with a wedding set for December 8th.
The evening of the 7th, we had a real blow-out dinner at Valentino's at the Venetian. It was the Chef's Extravaganza Tasting Menu with wine pairings. Seven courses and seven different wines. I won't say how much it cost, but our mortgage payment back in the 70's wasn't as much as this dinner. We started at 6 p.m. and didn't finish til 8:45. It was wonderful. We forgot to bring the camera, so the only pictures were taken on my phone, but we have very vivid memories.
 Jeff in his monkey suit |
 Our beautiful dessert with anniversary g... |
Immediately afterward, we headed over to the Wayne Brady show at the Venetian, where both of us were singled out by Wayne during his show. He made a big deal out of the fact that Jeff was wearing a tuxedo (like Old Vegas) and said he looked like that guy on Monopoly. I then was picked to go onstage and provide sound effects for a skit. Big hit. Jeff was picked on again later in the show to start a set. Afterward, everyone kept coming over to us telling us how good we had been and congratulations on our anniversary (since I had mentioned that I had been married to Mr. Monopoly for 40 years while on stage.) This continued all the way through the casino and even out to the cab stand.
The wedding was the next day at the Viva Las Vegas wedding chapel. Neither Amanda or Adam could make the wedding, but my brother Stephen, his wife, both their sons and wives and Aunt Kaki all came. We had more people at our renewal that at our original ceremony.
In November 1968, My Mother, brother and I put the wedding presents and my wedding gown in the car and drove up to Great Lakes Naval Training Center so we could get married and have some time together before Jeff had to return to Vietnam in February 1969. We only had a couple of people at the ceremony and didn't even have a reception. I always missed the fact that I didn't get to have a wedding cake - especially as much as I LOVE wedding and birthday cake.
This wedding was everything we hoped it would be and more. We had the limousine pick us up at The Bally
 Inside the limo |
Not only was this a great wedding, but we actually returned from Vegas with almost all the money we had planned to lose. How great is that?
